Thus, cruelty should at least be put into harness, and none of its
valuable energy wasted on wanton experiments, as it is by Nature.
And thus, as the boy is father to the man, should the human race one
day be father to--what?
That is just where my speculations would arrest themselves; that was the
X of a sum in rule of three, not to be worked out by Peter Ibbetson,
Architect and Surveyor, Wharton Street, Pentonville.
As the orang-outang is to Shakespeare, so is Shakespeare to ... X?
As the female chimpanzee is to the Venus of Milo, so is the Venus of
Milo to ... X?
Finally, multiply these two X's by each other, and try to conceive the
result!
* * * * *
Such was, crudely, the simple creed I held at this time; and, such as it
was, I had worked it all out for myself, with no help from outside--a
poor thing, but mine own; or, as I expressed it in the words of De
Musset, "Mon verre n'est pas grand--mais je bois dans mon verre."
For though such ideas were in the air, like wholesome clouds, they had
not yet condensed themselves into printed words for the million. People
did not dare to write about these things, as they do at present, in
popular novels and cheap magazines, that all who run may read, and learn
to think a little for themselves, and honestly say what they think,
without having to dread a howl of execration, clerical and lay.
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